LOUIS AGASSIZ 105 



Tortugas consists in their composition ; they are chiefly- 

 made up of corallines, limestone algsG, and, to a small extent 

 only, of real corals." This is a matter which has been 

 rediscovered since by many investigators of coral reefs in 

 various parts of the world, but Louis Agassiz was, I think, 

 the first to notice the important fact that so-called coral 

 reefs are not always formed of coral. 



At this time, about 1855, we are told (Le^/ers, d;c., of Alex- 

 ander Agassiz) that " his father's affairs, notwithstanding the 

 fostering care of the son, were in a more than usually deplor- 

 able muddle shortly after Alexander Agassiz left college. 

 Louis Agassiz possessed but a hazy idea of the value of a 

 dollar, and the modest funds of the household budget had 

 an alarming way of converting themselves into alcoholic 

 specimens at the most inopportune moments." So in order 

 to retrieve the family fortunes, Mrs. Agassiz and her stepson 

 Alexander resolved to start a school for girls in the upper 

 part of their house at Harvard, which at once became an 

 unqualified success. " It became the girls' school of its day ; 

 special omnibuses brought the pupUs out from Boston ; 

 while parents in other parts of the country made arrange- 

 ments for their daughters to live in the neighbourhood, that 

 they might enjoy its special advantages." Agassiz himself 

 gave a daily lecture to some sixty or seventy girls, and 

 remarked enthusiastically : " We will teach the girls every- 

 thing but mathematics, and the poor things can learn that 

 almost anywhere else." His son, however, who was an 

 excellent mathematician, attended efficiently, no doubt, to 

 that branch of their education. This school flourished for 

 about eight years and was then closed, as the improved 

 finances of the family made it no longer necessary. 



About 1860 Harvard commenced the building of what is 

 now the magnificent Museum of Comparative Zoology, for the 

 purpose of containing Professor Agassiz's rapidly increasing 

 collections. In the first endowment given for this purpose 

 it was stated as a condition that the museum was to be called 



